Finckel is especially excited about the Shanghai Quartet, which performs in the final concert of the festival, the program originally played on March 26, 1827 (March 27). “The Shanghai really is as fine a string quartet as one can hear. I’m very gratified that they’re coming to do this,” he says. There’s another notable aspect of this particular program: Beethoven died the same day.

The last piece on the program is Beethoven’s Piano Trio in G major, Op. 1, No. 2. “This was one of the works that Beethoven officially introduced himself to Vienna, his first published work,” says Finckel. “He decided to make a go of chamber music as his way to put his foot forward.”